


Lights Will Guide You Home

by CountlessUntruths (KaliCephirot)



Category: Half Life Trilogy - Sally Green
Genre: Angst, Fights, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort Sex, M/M, discussions, nabriel - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 15:29:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5591524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaliCephirot/pseuds/CountlessUntruths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“And I am so, so tired and I am so, so angry.  I am so tired at always being left behind, at having to be the one to hold on and try to build a house with toothpicks. ” - Hypothetically set in Half Lost, this will most likely be jossed when the book's out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lights Will Guide You Home

I was the one to find Nathan, after. The only other person who could’ve known where he was was Nesbitt, and he was busy helping what remained of our Resistance escape. Arran had wanted to go with me, his worry for his brother obvious, but he was a doctor and he was needed there, so instead I promised to him what I had already promised Nathan, that I’d go and find him.

So it was not so much, really, that I knew where to find him. But I was the first one to look at him. And I think about that often.

The first thing I loved of him was his eyes. I often heard whispers from the people at the Resistance, saying how scary he was, how his eyes seemed so empty, and I always thought that was ridiculous. Nathan’s eyes weren’t *empty*, not ever. His eyes were hungry and sad and desperate, and sometimes, every now and then, full of mirth and joy. Not enough times, in my opinion, but enough for me be aware of just how his face would shift, how his eyes would crinkle, if he was to smile. I lived for the laughter in his eyes, or the times when he seemed almost at peace.

His eyes were empty and dead looking when I found him. He was drenched in mud and blood, his eyes rimshot red. But all his expressiveness, all his anger, all the fire that made Nathan _Nathan_ seemed out. And when he looked at me, he relaxed the hand around the Fairborn but he didn’t put it out, and simply said a ‘let’s go’ and I just followed.

And see, I hate myself for thinking about that, about the twitch he did when I called his name, of the way for one moment I was afraid of him the way I always swore I’d never _ever_ be, and I hate myself because I keep on wondering, what would have happened, if it hadn’t been me the one to find him? If I’d allowed someone else to come with me?

I hate myself because I already know, and yet I keep thinking about it.

*

The fight has been working itself for weeks from both of our parts. I’ve seen it coming, but I didn’t do anything to stop it because… I’m tired. I’m only nineteen years old. I don’t want this to be my life, our life, I don’t want this to be Nathan’s life. I never wanted to be part of a war, never wanted to see the person I love wasting away in revenge the way others do in alcohol and I don’t know what to do because nothing I do seems to help.

And I am so, so tired and I am so, so angry. At him. At Annalise. At Caitlin. At my father and mother. At Michèle. I am so tired at always being left behind, at having to be the one to hold on and try to build a house with toothpicks.

So when Nathan comes back from one of his trips and he has forgotten to bring any food _again_ , I just… I don’t snap. But when the thundering skies actually break and it starts raining, I hit my limit. So I sigh and mutter in French, pinching the bridge of my nose, which is a thing my father used to do when my mother was angry, and I don’t really realize it then, what I’m doing, but Nathan does. His already short temper is shorter these days, ready to snap at every thing.

“Go on then! Go fucking on. If you’ve got to fucking say something, fucking say it!” Nathan says, eyes ablaze, ready to burn me, not with this new Gift of his, I don’t think, but he will turn me to ashes just the same, rain or no rain. “Fucking say it already! I know you’ve been wanting to!”

And I know I shouldn’t. I’ve been here, before. Not with Nathan, not in this position, but as an espectator. I have all of my parents’ fights seared in my brain and I know that screaming back doesn’t help, that it won’t solve anything, that it will only make things worse.

But see, the thing is? You don’t have to scream back to still be fighting. You can cut yourself from the fight, act as if it was beneath you, as if you’re so damn superior from the other person, as if all the fighting and screaming is so displeasing and beneaeth you. Dad used to fight that way. With mom, with Michèle. Never with me, 'tho. I mastered that technique from him since I was twelve.

And now I use it against Nathan, cut myself from this wet cold, from this hunger, this despair and… I don’t think about it. About what I’m doing. About what it must be from Nathan’s point of view, of being treated like…

I just don’t think about what I’m doing, or I would have stopped myself. I know I would have. Instead I just think that I’m hurting and that I want to hurt back. And I am very, very good at hurting back.

“What do you want me to say?” and my voice is ice. Not calm, but I don’t have to scream to say what I want. I don’t like screaming, I despise it. But I am like my father that way: I can shield myself from the things hurting myself and take myself away, even without alcohol. “Perhaps a 'oh, no, Nathan, it’s fine that you didn’t bring food, we can eat nothing’? Be smart.”

“Oh, is that it? Bloody, stupid Nathan, isn’t it?” I wonder if he’ll hit me again, with the way he’s looking at me. And perhaps it’s that what makes a little of the shield I’m hiding myself against crack a little, not out of fear of getting hurt, but knowing that he’ll feel guilty, later, after he calms down, if it ends up with us hurting each other.

“Nathan, I didn’t mean to–”

“Yes, you did!” He pushes me, hard. I stumble back, almost fall down. The anger is there again, but Nathan is also there, breathing hard. “Fucking say it already!”

Another sigh, my shield back in place. Another 'this-is-so-ridiculous-and-you’re-making-me-waste-my-time’ condescending look. I don’t think.

“Why don’t you tell me what I’m supposed to say, then we can, maybe, get away from this rain, if you don’t mind?”

“The fucking 'told you so’! You were right! She’s a traitor!”

Lightning strikes, turning the forest into a world of black and white for a moment. Thunder claps in the distance.

My heart breaks and my anger is gone, just like that.

Because Nathan’s eyes are shining and I don’t think it’s the rain, not just that.

“Fucking say it! Fucking, stupid Nathan who believed that the fucking White Witch was good and understood him and who loved him! Say the fucking 'told you so’ you’ve been dying to say already!”

And I can’t breathe.

Because… because I had dreams. Romantic, stupid, useless dreams to torture myself with now. I dreamt of somewhere warm and safe, full of forests and mountains to climb and a river or a lake nearby, somewhere we could swim. I tortured myself endlessly imagining Nathan, sinewy and powerful, coming out of the lake, rivoulets of water caressing his skin, and Nathan, a Nathan that wanted me, that loved me best, coming to me, and kissing me and biting my lips the way he did at the bunker. Only, in my head, he wouldn’t stop there. I would kiss him and he’d kiss me back. I would love him, just like I do now and more, and he–

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I didn’t want Nathan to be this hurt, this broken.

I wanted him to choose me. I wanted that the idea of not being with me was too unbearable. I wanted him to decide that his happiness, a quiet place with forests nearby and a pond could be with me. I wanted him to picture his life with me and realize that it would still be good, that it could be amazing. I wanted that if a miracle happened and he stopped loving Annalise, that he could choose to love me.

And instead of a miracle it was the end of the world with no survivors, with a wreckage of someone who once upon a time was Nathan, a Nathan that I don’t know if he’ll be able to heal this pain. This betrayal.

I want to tell him that I didn’t want this, that I wanted to be proven wrong, that I wanted him to be happy, and it’s not completely a lie. Since I’ve known him, there hasn’t been anything I’ve wanted more than Nathan Byrn, safe and happy and un harmed. At times, when I saw him starting to heal after the cage, I did think that, maybe it would be enough if he was happy, even if it wasn’t with me.

But I can’t say it, because it would be a lie. Because a part of me did want to be right.

Nathan laughed, before. He talked. Even after his fight with Annalise, even with his exhaustion, he’d been more centered. And we mock fought and we played as if we were the teenagers we actually are, as if we didn’t have any care in the world except school and perhaps a telly show or a summer job.

Nathan had been getting better, before. With her. Rather than the lonesome, lost boy I first met in Geneva who would sleep with his hands in front of him as if he was still wearing chains, I remember the days after she woke up and he’d look so soft, so careful, and I remember my jealousy but I also remember Nathan’s face.

And I think that Nathan might be crying now, even as he looks at me as if he hates me, and all I want is to hold him and make empty promises that I have no way of keeping. I just want to lie to him and make it better, make it true with the power of make belief.

“Nathan…”

But then I hear it and, for once, I’m faster than him. I push him away from the bullet that would have gone through his heart and instead it goes through me, in and out, in a second, and the last thing I hear before I fall to the ground and the darkness engulfs me, is Nathan screaming my name.

*

I’m not really sure about what happens next, or how long I’m unconscious. I saw things, too much detailed to be part of a dream, too fast to make much sense of them.

A breath, Nathan fighting, killing the Hunters that followed him.

Another breath, Nathan by my side, calling my name, pale and scared, hands trembling as he holds me.

A breath, and I can swear that the rain slows down around us as Nathan’s hands tear open my already-ruined shirt.

I think I hear him muttering, saying a run-on sentence of 'please don’t die please don’t die please don’t die fuck fuck don’t die Gabriel’ and I want to reassure him that I won’t, but then the Fairborn is on my side, in my side, cutting me open and I scream and black out.

*

When I wake up again, the antiseptic scent betrays where I am even before Arran’s hands push me, ever so gently, to lay down on my back again.

“Careful, you’re still healing,” Nathan’s brother is extremely good looking and soft and careful. When he first arrived, I couldn’t see much of Nathan in him, but now, with the lack of food, his face has sharpened and the bits of Nathan’s face that must have belonged to his mother’s family stand up clear: the high cheekbones, the lips, even the shape of his eyes.

Right now it’s not a comfort, but I let him push me down again, aching everywhere.

“What?”

“Van says the Hunter seem to have changed the poison in their bullets so it’s stronger,” Arran says. “I had to stitch your side up since it wouldn’t close. Van is making an antidote to help, she believes she’ll have it tomorrow.”

“Where’s Nathan?”

And at this, Arran avoids my eyes. A nice White Witch who hates lying and who is terrible at it. “He’s okay, don’t worry, he wasn’t hurt.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” and I am, despite the fact that the anger and despair I had felt before are still there, I think. But I want to see him, and I don’t want to believe that he’d leave me to go and kill more Hunters if I’m injured. “But that’s not what I asked.”

Arran sighs and he looks at me and in the expression he gives me, it’s the most I’ve seen of Nathan of him. I’d been surprised to realize that Nathan’s hot headed temper didn’t come from the Edge side of the family and rather the Ashworth’s, but Mercury had been cold in her fury, and the same with Marcus. From what Nathan has told me about his grandmother and his sister Deborah, and from what I’ve witnessed even from kind, patient, Arran, they are rather explosive.

And now he looks at me with defiance and sthe stubborness I’ve come to expect from Nathan.

“I told him that he couldn’t be here until he calmed down.”

“ _What?_ ” I curse, trying to push the covers aside, ignore the way the left side of my body, the part where the Fairborn cut into me, aches and I almost black out at the pain.

But Arran’s hands are on my shoulders and they push me down again and I’m left gasping a bit, hoping I’m not bleeding again.

“Now, I want you to listen to me. I love my brother. I’ve loved him since I can remember. All I ever wanted for Nathan is to be safe and happy and, like I told you before, I’m ecstatic that the two of you are friends. Gabriel, I think you mean a lot to my brother and I think you’ve helped him a lot. With you, I’ve seen Nathan smile and act like the teenager he should be allowed to be. I am going to be forever in your debt for that.”

For once I don’t know what to say to that. Should I confess to the brother of my friend, once again, that I love him dearly? That he has helped me as well? That Nathan helped me not only regain my Gift, but myself, the self I thought I had lost after Michèle’s death? That no matter what, I will be by Nathan’s side until my dying breath?

My silence must be answer enough, because Arran sighs and his expression loses some of that fierce-Nathanish-expression, goes back to being gentle and careful.

“You’re not helping him right now, Gabriel.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I know that you want to. And I know that you’re doing what you think it’s the best but… back when Nathan still lived with us, before the Council took him away, Deborah and I used to do this thing where we’d excuse almost anything Nathan did, every single temper tantrum or rude behavior because we thought, he’s already going through so much. He already has to tolerate so much grief from the rest of the world, shouldn’t we, his big brother and sister, become his support?

"After he was taken, a few days before my grandmother died, she told me this: you don’t let the people you love, who love you, hurt you or make you feel bad. If you love someone and that person loves you, you should feel free and safe enough to say 'you’re hurting me’. ”

And a part of me wants to pretend that I don’t get what he’s saying. A part of me wants to say that it’s not the same, that I’m staying with Nathan because not being with him would kill me, that I promised Nathan, _swore_ that I’d be by his side no matter what.

But… but I get what he’s saying. I get it because it’s also something I was thinking before, back when I got so angry that I pulled a dad on Nathan. That this was something I’d lived through, before.

I never wanted to become my father. But I also never wanted someone I love to be like my father either, so afraid to lose someone that they kept them at arms’ length. Like Nathan has been doing.

Just like that, I’m suddenly so exhausted. So, so exhausted, more tired than any nineteen years old should feel.

Arran squeezes my shoulder gently. “Rest. And, don’t worry.”

“Pardon?”

He smiles, and he’s not much older than me, than us. Twenty three, perhaps, and he looks almost as exhausted as I feel. “If I know my brother at all, he’ll sneak in tonight after I’m gone.”

*

I don’t intend to do so, but they must have given me something, before, that makes me sleep again. I don’t know for how long I do so, but when I wake up again the night’s almost over and there’s a rosy kind of light coming thought the tent, signaling dawn.

And there’s Nathan, sitting on the floor, arms holding his legs tightly, the bags under his eyes are almost as dark as bruises. He’s bitten his nails almost to the bone and the mix of emotions is still there, but Nathan’s well being is always going to be my first priority.

“You should have slept,” I say, my voice rough and sleep-coated.

Nathan’s eyes fly open and even with the poor light I see his eyes are red rimmed and more focused than they have been for weeks. He’s not covered in blood or dirt, and the clothes he’s wearing are a little big on him and well taken care of. Arran’s, I guess.

I wonder if he’s going to say anything but then, still looking at me, he starts shaking and then crying, making a sound as if he was wounded and–

Fuck my injuries, my hurt, my pain. This hurts more.

I sit down, ignore my wincing, and I fall to my knees so I can hug him to me. Nathan clings back to me, his face against my neck, and we’re close enough that even with how rough his whispers are, I catch his lithany of 'i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m so fucking sorry’ as his fingers dig unto my shoulderblades. And I hug him just as fiercly, kissing his hair, the side of his head, anywhere I can press a kiss to and I don’t say 'it’s okay’ because it wasn’t, not really, but I accept his apology with every kiss.

And for once he’s not pulling away, he’s clinging to me and crying and trembling and I think I’m crying as well, but they’re good tears, release tears. By the time we’re both done, I’m exhausted again. But when he shifts as if to move away, I cling to him.

“You have to sleep,” he says, his voice rough-sounding.

“Stay,” I ask, ready to beg if I have to.

But Nathan doesn’t make me beg. He shifts again, helps me stand up and _that’s_ when the wound by my side decides to complain again. I curse, holding unto him because it _hurts_ , and Nathan is immediately holding me, te blood seeping through the bandages.

“Lay down,” he says, already helping me do so. And then Nathan is stradling my hips and taking off the bandages and– I give a soft, probably hysterical, little laugh, because of all the times I thought of Nathan taking me to the bed, of taking of my clothes, this is what the world gives me, really?

“What?” He says, frowning.

“Tell you later,” I say, and then I gasp when Nathan’s hands covers the still open wound. “What are you doing?”

“Helping. Now, shush,” and it’s a little too much– Nathan’s intense eyes focused on me, his weight on me, his hands on me–

And his hand feels marvelously warm and I take a deep, sudden breath, almost forgetting how to breathe. It’s like nothing I’ve felt before, not just the rush of your own healing gift, but it felt as if Nathan was inside me. I could _feel him _, somehow, as if we were connected, the way it had been in our minds when he helped me recover himself, as if he was giving something of his again, inside this circle we’re making. I’m staring at his eyes and he’s looking at me and I’m already half hard without us having done anything at all.__

We both shiver when he lifts his hand from my side. There’s a shiny, still pink new scar there, to match the one over my shoulder, and without the lingering traces of the poison I can already feel my own healing abilties working better to repair whatever lingering damage may be there.

Nathan hasn’t moved from on top of me and I know this is a terrible idea, know that I will regret this, and I know that it’ll hurt much more than any bullet wound when he pushes me away.

But I sit up and before I can think things through, before either of us regains control, I kiss him, a hand on his face, ready for him to push me away again.

Only he doesn’t.

Nathan kisses _back_. He presses against my lips, rough hands on my sides, and then he’s kissing me harder, pushing me on my back and I cling to him, starving for this, for his touch. Nathan is shivering as he touches me, his kiss demanding and we only break apart when he have to breathe.

“Can’t lose you too,” Nathan whispers against my lips.  

I hate that I can’t promise him forever, that I can’t promise him that he won’t. So instead I kiss him again and I rock against him, delighted to feel him hard as well, for this, for me. “Kiss me.”

And he does. And it’s not very elegant– we’re too exhausted for anything more, with anyone being able to come in at any moment, but there’s no stopping it either. I help Nathan take off the jeans he’s wearing, his shirt, and he takes off the scrubs I’m wearing and then it’s a matter of friction, mostly– I get to see Nathan rubbing himself off against my hip, feel his hips under my hands as I help him with the rhythm.

I get to see Nathan’s face free of anything but pleasure as he comes and I get to kiss his breath away, just as I get to moan and beg please and yes when his hand curls around my cock to help bring me to my own climax.

We clean as best as we can later, Nathan putting his jeans on again, me pulling back my scrubs, and when I pull him to lay down besides me he does, curling behind me, an arm around my back careful of where my new scar is still smarting, and then he’s moving close to me, his forehead pressed against the back of my shoulder, his arm protective around me, Nathan a shield around me.

And this doesn’t fix anything, not really– we’ll have to talk again, I want to know about this, what it means for him, for us…

But right now it can wait, and right now it’s more than enough.


End file.
